Wildfire
by CarliPlay
Summary: At the turning of Flame Queen's 18th birthday, she attends a hearing for her subjects who unlike her, are starving from the lack of coal in the land. She brushes off this problem, but is met by a furious Marceline, angry at the Queen's abusive rule who burned all the land of Ooo to nothing in her few year absence. Harsh words fly and in no time, an inferno begins.
1. The Hearing

My burning body contained within this metal tin can, a mark of royalty if I've ever seen one. I smirked and looked into the glass mirror within my burning room cocking my head at each clink the armour made with each shift in my body.

Its been years, if only he could look at me now.

Fire pitted my stomache and I angrily let out a wild scream, blasted the mirror mixing shattering and melting in one slick movement.

Everyone in Ooo is dead. There is no more Finn. There hasn't been a Finn since I turned 16.

"Flambo!" I screamed at the empty doorway.

"Yes my Queen?" the cat-like fire demon slinked into sight, annoyed at being beckoned forward.

"Clean up this mess, I have another hearing to attend." I ordered pointing at the shimmering puddle pooling at the floor.

"Alright." he responded and skittered over, his face unwavering.

I sighed, at his silence before opening my mouth, "You're not going to ask me what happened?"

"No point, I'd still have to clean it." Flambo retorted bitterly before beginning to lick up the mirror like milk.

The corners of my mouth twitched and I turned away from him before briskly walking out the door. I strolled down the halls taking time to look at the pictures of long gone family members and smile at guards as they bowed low to the ground before me. Same as it has been in the last few years. The molten core of the fire kingdom was soothing, but everything else was almost annoying.

I paused before the door to the throne room, and listened for a few minutes to the crowd of murmurs behind it. Some sounded angry, some frightened, some even sad.

I took a long breath before gingerly pushing the door open. Flame elementals were scattered all throughout the grand hall between pieces of shattered glass, after I destroyed it I demanded no one touch the pieces that remained. I wanted to remind myself there was no going back. The room hushed rapidly into silence.

I sat at my throne with the metal in my armour clinking with finality. Dozens of fiery eyes stared back at me, unmoving.

"The court is now in order." I loudly pronounced, "Those who wish may now step forward and plead their case."

Silence reigned again, dragging on for minutes, the inferno of the volcano making heat waves flicker over the crowd.

"Anyone at all? Is this a perfect kingdom then in your eyes!?" I asked, raising my voice even louder.

Another moment ticked by before a small flame child stepped forward. She raised her chin up to me with her eyes burning like coals and small licks of fire swirling down her back, in her hand she held a piece of coal gingery, careful not to burn it.

"My Queen, your entire kingdom is starving. You may not have to eat coal like the rest of us, but we your people are suffering." she stuttered her voice wavering between words, "This piece is all my family has left."

I narrowed my eyes at the shiny black rock before slowly rising from my seat. The crowd erupted into worried and fearful murmurs as I glided down the stairs so I stood before the child who by now was quaking in her boots.

I bent over and lowly I spoke, "So, where do you suggest I get more coal to feed my kingdom?"

"My Queen," she stammered and bowed before looking back to me, "there are no more mines."

"Then you can't expect me to do anything about it." I hissed in her ear before turning back to return to my throne, behind me the crowd rose in volume from whispers to begging.

"You can't just let us starve!"

"Where will we get food to feed our families!?"

"This is all your fault!"

"...Fuck you." a voice boomed throughout the grand hall, silencing the crowd.

I stopped mid stride. I knew that voice. My foot landed on the floor with a solid clang, and slowly my foot screeched across the floor creating a shower of sparks in its wake, I glared into the crowd my eyes ablaze and hair flickering angrily on end.

"You brought all this misery on yourself. I'm gone for only two and a half years, not even and you FUCKING BURN DOWN OOO!?" She screamed.

It was that vampire, her eyes wide and fangs bared menacingly. Her tongue whipped around tasting the sulfur ridden air and her hair snaking out ready to pounce.

"Finn was going mad. You have to understand." I stated simply the curls of fire beginning to ball between the palms of my hands.

Marceline growled and took a step forward, "No you understand bitch, you made a serious mistake messing with with my new home. I don't care if Finn was going crazy, Bubblegum was going to help him! He didn't need you to destroy him and the land he defended for so long! So understand this, you piece of shit, I'll make you pay. Oh you'll pay all right. You'll have nothing left but your fiery color, but even that will be gone when I'm done with you."

She licked her lips and brazenly dropped her body to the floor, scraping her fangs along the barren rock so a high pitched scream erupted.

"Bring it on worm" I screamed, fury erupted all over my body, the fires inside me multiplied rapidly, and I felt myself growing and flames streaking all across the room. This blazing inferno was me, I was the Queen of all things fire how dare that undead witch tell me how to enact my rule. I was honest with my people, fair, and merciful. Was I not merciful to Ooo by not letting them suffer?!

In my thoughts and fire, I hadn't realized the soft fingers brushing my forehead.

"I wonder who you are, Flame Queen, without your precious gem." that thousand year old voice whispered delicately in my ear, each syllable dropping in me like a bomb.

"No…" I whispered, my eyes widened and as the fingers firmly plucked my gem off my brow, exposing me to the torment of my elemental matrix...


	2. Burning Out

Everything was dark and blurred. Grey faces streaked and swirled around me, expressions of horror with curling lips and tearful eyes burning in my mind. My body was in anguish, I could feel it screaming and tearing in different directions, whatever that vampire had done to me, was hell. I saw skin being peeled off faces of children, their skin blistering and swelling with pus and their eyes bubbling with blood. I screamed at the sight but nothing came out of my mouth. Their hairs burned to a stubble and into their skull, pores shriveling and blackening rapidly.

Why is this happening!? What did she do to me?! I, can I be doing this to these people?

The burning sensation, the one I have lived with since the moment I became aware of myself was dying. It was dying away differently than when I almost suffocated in the hole Jake trapped me in. This wasn't me dying for real, this was my fire dying. I was burning out, I was blazing too much, losing too much energy.

Fear washed through me, cold and as painful as water drenching me. How could this happen! I was a fire elemental all my life, could it even be possible for me to lose my fire without losing my life?

I felt my body shrinking, I had burnt so much I was towering over the grey blur that was the ground, and it rushed toward me. The impact slammed my face down, grit stung my face as dirt and rubble embedded within my skin. My skin.

The pain knocked me senseless, and I laid there with pain aching every muscle in my body. I tried raising my head , and through wisps of red hair I saw the sky filled with stars looming over me. The vampiress floated above me cackling gleefully, strumming on that axe she carried wherever she please. The noted fell dully on my ears, but then her voice began the ring into the air.

_Sad little flame queen_

_Where is your crown now_

_If it once was on your head_

_It's no where to be found_

_You built your kingdom_

_On the tears of your unrest_

_Sad little flame queen_

_You aren't royal to me_

_You don't have any fire_

_Look at your hands_

_Can't you see_

_Sad little flame queen_

_Sad little flame queen_

_Now what's left for you_

_You burnt down all of Ooo_

_You aren't of fire_

_You're what Finn once was_

_Sad little human_

Each word that escaped her lips, brought on internal pain to add to my outer shell's torment. Tears, something new and stinging worse than Finn's ever did back when my body burned bright for him and only him.

"What did you do this?"

"Didn't I just sing it to you doll, or would you like me to do an encore?" She landed in front of me, nothing but her toe-scuffed red boots in my plane of vision.

"No, no more." I gagged, and coughed violently, dirt expelling with saliva.

"Now if you don't mind, I'll just be going." her voice reeked with cynical humor and her boots turned sharply on her heel.

"Don't leave me…" My throat rasped weakly, everything was limp, I couldn't even crawl I was sure.

She laughed, "Oh I won't be leaving Ooo just yet. I haven't made you pay far enough."

With heavy eyelids, I watched her shoes disappear from sight, leaving me staring at grey dirt, rocks, and strange red strands of hair.

"I can't die like this, not to that stupid vampire, I am a Queen. I don't care what she says, I may not have fire now m=but there must be a way to get it back. That's my throne to rule." I thought angrily to myself staring more intensely at the dirt.

My lungs heaved from the stress of breathing through them, my skin screamed like freshly peeled scabs, and the sensitivity of my eyes to color burned. Those boots hurt my eyes, the dull grey was almost soothing now.

"It's okay," I told myself, "My brothers and cousins will come for me. They have to, they must know I'm alive."

I grunted and tried to lift myself. Everything fell beneath me. There would be no moving.

Slowly it dawned on me, if I was human, and these were the first time I could use muscles, what do I do, just wait for them to get stronger?

So I did. No one came until I was deep in a dark state of sleep.


	3. CandyMan

"Where do you think she came from?"

"I'm not sure, I found her on the up top."

"Doesn't she look a bit like…"

"No, she can't be, the Queen is a fire elemental, this one is like us."

"But I've never seen hair quite like this."

"She beautiful."

The voices around me were strange, they didn't have the crisp underlying crackle of a fire elemental, but not the sweet ring that most candy people have either. In fact, the tone was flat, neutral.

"What?" I groaned, my head flopping uselessly to the side. My eyes opened, but the startling array of colors blurred together, making alien faces looming over me.

"She's coming to!" A feminine voice squealed in delight.

I squinted trying to make sense of the faces, they had pink-tan fleshy faces, and strange neutral hair colors, like brown, and dirty blond. Teeth flashed as they talk, unpointed and more for eating plants than anything.

"What, what are you?" I stuttered, the shapes beginning to form into solidity.

"My name Susan." A blond one with a cat hat loomed over me with a wide grin.

"Excuse Susan, my name is Harold, and this is John." The brown haired boy pointed to himself then at a similar version of himself.

The one called john held out his hand in a friendly gesture, "Nice to meet you."

"What's going on. Where am I?" I grunted, taking his hand so he lifted me to a comfortable sitting position.

John flashed a crooked grin at me, "You're at the CandyMan Village."

"I, I never heard of it." I said confused.

I thought I had burnt all of Ooo to a crisp, what were these creatures, and how could they possibly have a civilization. Looking around I found myself in a small cavern, a low ceiling with two bed and a stove in the corner, small holes were located around the room near the top, no doubt for ventilation. The rest of the furniture was humble, and primarily made of rock and woven cloth. If you thought about it, there wasn't a splinter of wood to be found. The cave was lit by lamps hung on the walls. The flickering of fire was soothing to me, and aided in calming my nerves.

"You Topside?" Susan grunted her eyes widening.

"I'm not from underground if that's what you're asking." I snorted, thinking about the burning castle I had waiting for me back home.

"How do you survive in Ooo!? There's nothing left." John exclaimed excited.

Harold crawled over his eyes flashing, "Yeah! Tell us!"

I was overwhelmed, surely if I told them who I was they'd kill me, afterall it was obvious why they were forced to live underground.

"Leave her alone." A pink-brown figure lingered in the doorway.

My eyes widened, and painfully I recognized her for who she was, the princess of the candy kingdom, or when there was a candy kingdom. She was definitely shorter, in fact she was in a strange chair with large wheels. Her bottom limbs were shriveled and browned, as were other random patches of skin. Her hair was short too, and her eyes that were aimed at me, seemed to look past me into nothingness.

"Princess Bubblegum?!" I gasped aloud.

"I go by Bonnie now." she said curtly, "You're lucky I can't see, but if I had any guess, you'd be the Flame Queen. I'd know that wretched voice anywhere."

Pain stung my face. I'm far from wretched.

"I think you're mistaken Bonnie, this is no fire elemental." John said.

"Yeah, she's just as human as us." Harold agreed.

I was shocked, I knew these people were different, but I didn't know humans still existed, and most importantly, I thought I was turned into the last one.

"Let me feel her." She reached out one shaking hand patiently, while Susan nudged me up from the ground and guided me over to her.

Fearfully I allowed her to clasp my hands.

She released almost instantly, "Definitely not fire. But I'm still not sure. What's your name?"

"My name?" I asked, did I have a name? All I knew was Flame Princess and Flame Queen.

"Yes", she snapped impatiently, "Your name."

"I'm Blusse." I spit out. I didn't even know what it meant but it sounded like a name.

She gave a displeased frown and wheeled her chair around, "Well, Blusse, welcome to CandyMan."

She started wheeling out the door and the group of humans began walking forward after her, so there wasn't much to do but follow.

I gasped the moment my eyes hit the space before me, all of this glorious space. It was like a beehive, there had to be hundreds of doorways along the sides of this massive cavern, the ceiling dripping like icicles, and a lake at the center at the bottom of the cavern was surrounded by a bunch of stone huts. Lamps were everywhere lighting the way for people everywhere, and winding paths snaked along the sides of the walls descending into the bottom.

"All this exists?" I asked in a dazed state.

"This is called the CandyMan for a reason." Bonnie said, "After the Day Of Flame, the humans, who were hiding underground for centuries spare some missions for other supplies, they attempted to save some surviving Candy Kingdom members, myself included. For the past two years we've been living together in peace.

"Are there other villages then?" I questioned, I was so sure I had destroyed everything.

The burnt princess nodded gracefully, "A few, the Man village, the MiscMan village, and a few nomads wander the caverns down here. When we are sure the Flame Queen is deceased, perhaps we can return to Topside someday."

"Hm." I grunted.

At least I was safe from that psycho-bitch.

"You can have the house we just left for now, but if you're going to stay here you might want to find yourself a job." Harold explained as we walked down the side path descending into the cavern.

I was confused to say the least, but nodded and followed, I didn't have much choice anyways.


End file.
